KEENE, N.H. — Mitt Romney opened his town hall meeting here talking about the economy — his thoughts on growing business, getting government out of the way — just as he does nearly every other campaign event. But when he opened last week’s forum for questions, the first voter he called on didn’t seem concerned about any of that. He wanted to know the Republican presidential candidate’s stance on border security. A similar scene played out in South Carolina a few days later, when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) attended a town hall meeting she assumed would center on the economy, jobs and the federal deficit — only to see the assembled voters react most passionately to her comments on illegal immigration.
Polls may not suggest it, and the candidates may not be catering to it, but immigration is an issue that voters won’t let the GOP White House hopefuls escape.
Republican primary voters keep bringing immigration up as the candidates campaign in back yards, opera houses and recreation halls across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. To a sizable chunk of those who will pick the GOP’s presidential nominee, immigration is an urgent issue, even a litmus test.
“Immigration is not even close to the top issue for most Republicans today, but it is an issue that is heavy with symbolic importance to Republican voters,” said GOP pollster Jon Lerner, who advised Tim Pawlenty until he dropped out of the race last month. “If a candidate is squishy on immigration, that symbolically suggests that he’s probably unreliable on a whole host of other conservative issues.”
The view in the Republican Party on immigration has shifted dramatically to the right since 2006, when President George W. Bush proposed an overhaul that would have combined a legalization plan with tighter border security.
The issue is likely to take on even greater significance in the race for the Republican nomination with the recent entrance of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who oversees the nation’s biggest border state and who has a longer and more complicated record on immigration than his opponents.
Since entering the race, Perry has taken a tough stance on the issue.
“Once we secure the border, we can have a conversation about immigration reform in this country, but not until,” Perry told reporters after a campaign stop last month in South Carolina. “You must have the federal government putting the resources, the boots on the ground, the aviation assets in the air, and secure that border so that we know that the border is secure before we have a conversation about any immigration reform.”
Perry’s history with the border is more nuanced than that. He has long advocated a more seamless border between his state and Mexico, and he has traveled there to drum up business for his state. In 2007, he called the proposed construction of a fence between the United States and Mexico “idiocy,” saying “it absolutely would not work.”
Ray Sullivan, Perry’s communications director, said that remains Perry’s position.
“Fencing a 2,000-mile border is not practical,” Sullivan said. “The governor does and has always supported what he calls ‘strategic fencing’ in urban and high-trafficked areas.”